The present invention relates to an optical communication system, an interface board and an interface board control method.
A multitude of interface boards are installed in one node device since a plurality of signals can be transmitted by one optical fiber in a node device in an optical network utilizing wavelength division multiplexing (WDM). Normally, a monitoring control device is installed in a node device to monitor the occurrence of a fault in interface boards and change the setting of the interface boards. Since the monitoring control device of each node device is connected to a dedicated monitoring network, the monitoring control device of each node device can confirm information on a fault in the event of the fault.
However, if the node device with the monitoring control device having a fault is connected to the optical network, this node device is invisible to the monitoring network. Thus, the redundancy (duplication) of a monitoring control is necessary, which causes a problem of being uneconomical.
As for the redundancy of the monitoring control, an interface board disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. JP2003-173265A constantly monitors a state of a monitoring control device and notifies the occurrence of a fault to a host system through a monitoring network in the event of a fault in the monitoring control device. The interface board notifies the occurrence of a fault to the host system and attempts a recovery by resetting a monitoring card.